Creating a household name: Becky Lambert has built Hannan from ground up
by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor
Three years after she was named the school’s softball coach, Becky Lambert believed that her program at Archbishop Hannan suffered from a bit of anonymity.
Before today’s power ratings helped with seedings and placement of teams onto playoff brackets, coaches were entrusted with a system in which they ranked teams for postseason purposes.
“Nobody knew who we were,” Lambert said. “I had to find a way to get our name out to let people know who we are.”
Lambert believed such exposure would come by scheduling difficult non-district games against teams that already carried statewide clout. She found such an opponent in 2009, taking her Lady Hawks for a trip to Vermilion Parish and faced the reigning Class 1A state champion Delcambre of then-coach Mark Suire.
The 2 ½-hour trip proved fruitful. The Lady Hawks came away with a one-run victory and thus began putting together the kind of reputation associated with one of the state’s top programs.
“Since then, people knew who we were,” Lambert said.
Hannan bridged the gap from a program without a state championship to five, including a stretch of three straight under Lambert – that’s changed the perception of the Lady Hawks from a statewide perspective.
Lambert’s role in her first year as a high school coach was to implement a fundamentals-based approach in a family atmosphere, and the results have taken root.
No. 3 Hannan (25-4) returns to the LHSAA’s State Softball Tournament in Sulphur for the 14th time, facing No. 2 E.D. White (26-5) at 5 p.m. in Saturday’s Division II state semifinal at Frasch Park’s field No. 15.
Top-seeded and reigning state champion Vandebilt Catholic meets fifth-seeded Patrick Taylor in the other semifinal, with the two winners facing each other at 3 p.m. in Sunday’s state championship game.
“We’ve hit the ball well all season, and the bats have remained hot,” said Lambert, whose team is batting .385. “They’re just confident at the plate, very disciplined, which is something we’ve preached to them all year. We’re going to really need that against E.D. White because she (Shelbee Gros) is the best pitcher we’ve faced. She’s got speed, can change speeds, she’s got everything. The kids are excited. They’re confident. We’re looking forward to it.”
Lambert, who is 412-168 in her 20-year career, is a former two-sport athlete at Mandeville High, playing both basketball and softball, before going onto a four-year career at Southeastern Louisiana in softball.
She seamlessly transitioned into coaching travel ball, where she started High Voltage in 1995. She coached different age groups throughout the organization, along with providing hitting lessons as a way to give back to the next generation of players in the game.
Lambert’s day-to-day job was that of a pharmacy technician before giving a month’s notice to leave her job and spend more time with her 2-year-old son, Drew.
“I always did softball on the side,” she said.
Halfway through that announcement, Lambert received a phone call from then Hannan principal John Serio, who was in the market for a softball coach.
The school, which was located in St. Bernard Parish, had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and was relocating to the North Shore in Covington for a rebirth.
Serio, who desired a state softball title for his school, had gotten Lambert’s name from a couple of people in St. Bernard who had highly recommended Lambert.
Two visits over lunch, and Serio was certain Lambert was the right person to lead the school’s softball program.
Although he would only spend another year at the school, Serio hit a home run.
“It was a mile from my house,” Lambert said. “I’d always wanted to coach high school softball, so it worked out perfectly. I didn’t know I’d be here as long as I’ve been. I wasn’t sure.
“It was the first time I’d coached high school ball,” Lamber said. “I knew some of the travel kids that would maybe come to Hannan. I said I needed five years probably. Five years later, is when we won (state title). I didn’t know, I was just saying that. I was just trying to get the job.”
Lambert was familiar with the end goal of playing in the state tournament because of her travels to watch the event in Alexandria and later in Sulphur, where it’s been for the last 23 years.
Getting there, though, would take time before truly getting Hannan up and running. Three years after starting in 2006, the Lady Hawks reached the state tournament for the first time, where they lost to Delcambre, 3-1.
“Getting there was the thing,” Lambert said. “I always wanted to do that. It took a little time to build, and we got it going. I never dreamed that it (program) would be where it is. I really didn’t.”
A year after falling to Oberlin (2-0) in the Class 1A quarterfinals, Hannan struck gold for the first time in 2011.
The Lady Hawks persevered along the way, emerging with a run in the top of the seventh, for a 1-0 victory over top-seeded False River, and followed that up the following day with an 11-4 decision against Ascension Catholic.
“It (state championship) was the greatest feeling in the world, and I didn’t want that feeling to go away,” Lambert said.
Hannan won back-to-back state crowns with a 10-2 win over Catholic-Pointe Coupee in 2012 before the Lady Hornets responded a year later with a 4-3 win over the Lady Hawks in the state title game.
“We had the game in ’13 and let it slip away,” Lambert said. “It’s something you want to do, and somewhere you want to be. You want to be in Sulphur every year. The kids understand that.”
Hannan was growing as a school, and its athletic teams started playing in larger classifications/divisions.
Two seasons after their state runner-up finish, the Lady Hawks lost in the state quarterfinals and semifinals to Menard in 2015 and ’16, respectively.
St. Charles derailed Hanan in the quarterfinals (5-4) and semifinals the following two years in Division III and II, respectively, until the Lady Hawks went on to enjoy their greatest show of dominance as a program.
There was a run of three consecutive state championships bridged around the 2020 COVID-19 season that halted what Lambert believed was her best team that had an 11-1 record.
The Lady Hawks’ 6-2 victory over Parkview Baptist, which came after a quarterfinal win over nemesis St. Charles and powerhouse St. Thomas More, gave Lambert a bit of solace after what the ’20 team endured.
“I’m so glad we won it ’19 because I wasn’t expected to win,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d be over that today had we not won in ’19. The 2020 team was the best team we had, and we didn’t get to do it. We were easily the best team in our division. That doesn’t mean you’re going to win it, but I think we only lose if we beat ourselves.”
Hannan was collecting state championships at a rapid rate with consecutive titles over Haynes Academy to win the ’21 and ’22 state titles, 12-2 and 3-0, respectively. The Hawks reached the ’22 final with a 3-2 semifinal win over Vandebilt.
Hannan spent the next three years in the state tournament, where they were edged twice by familiar faces (St. Charles and Vandebilt), in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively.
The Lady Hawks’ eight-inning setback to St. Charles concluded a 19-11 season that helped shape this year’s return to the state tournament.
“Last year we were so inconsistent, it was really frustrating for me,” Lambert said. “I felt like they never came close to reaching their potential. We’d have a good game and then take two steps backward. There was a lot of head-butting last year between coaches and players.
“They didn’t totally buy into what we do at Hannan and the way we do things,” Lambert said. “At the end of the season, we said this is the way it’s going to be next year. We’re going to practice differently. We’re going to do this differently. It’s going to be done the way we want it, and there’s going to be consequences if you don’t.”
Lambert got a glimpse into the ’26 season through the team’s fall workouts that began in October. Such traits as work ethic, mindset, and attitude were noticeably improved, she said, laying the groundwork for an enjoyable spring.
“They have reached their potential this year,” Lambert said. “With that comes a lot of success, and it’s fun for them. This has been a really enjoyable year. It’s been a total 180.”
Hannan won 20 of its first 22 games before going through its only two-game losing streak of the season against Walker and Riverside Academy.
“We had opportunities in three of the four losses in the last two innings to win the game, and we just didn’t get it done,” she said.
During that stretch, the Lady Hawks presented Lambert with the 400th win of her career, a 16-1 run-rule win over District 7-4A foe Loranger.
“The thing I look at with all of those wins is the consistency we’ve had over the years,” Lambert said. “You think about all of the players that have come through. I’ve had some different assistant coaches and some really good ones. You think about all of the memories and the players.
“We take a great deal of pride in it because I feel like we always play a tough schedule,” Lambert said. “There’s been some tough wins in there, some tough losses. People ask why do I play such a tough schedule? Because we need to. That’s how we’re getting better.”
Lambert was greeted with signs of 400 after the landmark over Loranger. She was unsuspecting of a locker room filled with balloons and cookies with the number 400 on them.
“They made a big deal about it,” she said.
One of the relationships over the past two decades Lambert treasures the most has been the one with her son, Drew, who has been with her in the dugout since he was in seventh grade.
Drew spent his childhood outside of athletics, and while he didn’t pan out as a quarterback or baseball player Lambert selfishly hoped for, he’s been right with her the last few years as his mom’s pitching coach.
“He has been calling pitches since he was a seventh grader,” she said of her son, who graduated from Hannan in ’23. “He watched one of my former assistants (Harold Markum) give pitching less and Drew went and watched him. He fell in love with pitching, started calling them (pitches), and the kids like him and trust him.
“He taught himself to pitch,” she said. It’s special. Who wouldn’t want that? Every once in a while, when a ball gets hit really hard and goes out of the park, I’ll ask, ‘What pitch was that? We have to sit at opposite ends of the dugout because I ask too many questions. It’s really cool. I wanted a football player. I wanted the quarterback and the baseball player. I told him I’d stop coaching softball and travel with him so he could play. He just wanted to do softball.”
Lambert said that, instead of having to plug in a pitching machine in preparation for Gros, a Louisiana Tech signee with a terrific mix of speed and off-speed stuff, they’ll rely on Drew, who is equally capable of providing the Lady Hawks with a comparable look.
“That’s what he is going to do all this week,” she said. “We’re using him to prepare for her.”
Hannan, who doesn’t have any seniors on its roster, has six players batting over .400 with sophomore Kate Cancienne leading the way at .445 with 21 RBIs and nine stolen bases. Junior shortstop Kodi Ricks (.440, 6 homers, 44 RBIs and 23 stolen bases) follows with junior left fielder Khloe Renton (.427, 11 doubles, 3 triples, 1 homer, 38 RBIs), catcher Riley Williams (.414, 10 HRs, 42 RBIs), sophomore third baseman Alya Taylor (.407, 10 doubles, 2 HRs, 38 runs scored, 33 RBIs) and freshman second baseman Lucy Barrilleaux (.402, 7 doubles, 4 triples, a homer and 37 RBIs).
Ricks has struck out only twice in 84 at-bats, and Renton has struck out three times in 103 at-bats.
In the team’s 9-1 quarterfinal win over Buckeye last week, Ricks, Cancienne, and Barrilleaux each collected two hits with Ricks driving in four runs, helping Hannan’s offense outscore its opponents in the playoffs, 24-1.
Hannan has relied on a combination of junior Ava Kulivan and freshman Hunter Conners in the circle.
Kulivan, a Class 4A All-State honorable mention selection along with Taylor and Renton in ’25, is 18-4 with a 2.80 ERA and 118 strikeouts in 126.1 innings. Conners is 6-0 with a 2.01 ERA with 46 strikeouts in 41.2 innings.
They both pitched in the quarterfinal with Kulivan (6 innings, 2 hits, 5 Ks) getting the win and Conners striking out one in an inning in relief.
“The year after Drew graduated, there were a good group of juniors that came along,” Lambert said. “They were a good group that I didn’t know. I didn’t know they were coming to Hannan, so I stayed a little longer. Supposedly, we have another good group coming next year, so I guess I’ll be here a little longer.”